


Curses Make Strange Bedfellows

by blueteak



Category: Ladyhawke (1985)
Genre: Established Relationship, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-22 01:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12470704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: Philippe is curious about what Isabeau and Navarre experienced while under the curse.





	Curses Make Strange Bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



Philippe attempted to burrow closer to both Navarre and Isabeau as the wolves outside howled insistently enough to wake him out of a sound sleep. 

“What do they want, Lord?” Philippe mumbled groggily into Navarre’s chest, only to be startled into further wakefulness by an unexpected reply.

“They’re warning other wolves from this territory,” Navarre informed him, voice rough with sleep.

“How do you know?” Philippe asked.

Navarre opened his eyes and Philippe felt the force of his stare. Given the darkness and the angle, Philippe couldn’t quite tell whether one of Navarre’s eyebrows was raised or not. He suspected it was.

It still took Philippe a few moments. “But that…I mean, you haven’t been one in so long and you still understand them? Does this mean you could turn into one again?” Philippe started pull at Navarre's nightclothes in order to discover whether he was hiding any wolfish attributes on his person (though he had become intimately re-acquainted with every inch of Navarre earlier that very same evening), only to have his wrist grasped firmly, but gently. 

“I can promise you that the only thing I've retained from that part of my existence is my ability to take your head off before I know it’s you if you startle me. Now, unless we want Isabeau to take both our heads off, let’s return to sleep before we wake her.”

“Too late,” murmured Isabeau, giving Philippe’s hip a gentle pat. 

“Sorry, my lady,” Philippe said, turning toward her to brush an apologetic kiss on her cheek. 

Isabeau smiled her acceptance of the apology and they settled back into silence, more than ready to rest and recover from their exertions earlier that evening. 

Philippe, though he too was pleasantly sore and tired, couldn't keep his thoughts from racing as he pondered how much of their old lives Navarre and Isabeau might recall and wondered what else might lurk unremembered in each of them.

“Philippe,” Navarre said in his Captain of the Guard voice, the one he very rarely used on Philippe these days. “You are thinking louder than the wolves were howling.”

“I’m sorry. I just wish I knew what it had been like.”

“As well as whether Isabeau and I could spontaneously grow feathers and fur one day?” Navarre asked teasingly.

“Well. Obviously,” Philippe replied. “I almost wish I knew what it had been like to be turned into an animal, to be near my beloveds but not able to speak with them during either the night or the day. I mean, I was there, but I didn’t fully understand.There was the pain of separation and the frustration, I understood that, once I understood the situation. All the same, it must have been magical to be able to transform, and to still be able to understand the wolves and…”

“And what the hawks feel when they hunt,” Isabeau chimed in.

Philippe was glad he couldn't see the expression on her face as she said it. She sounded dreamily intent, and he could quite happily live without knowing whether her face as she remembered kills looked the same as her face when she made him surrender to pleasure with sympathy but no mercy. 

Navarre and Isabeau’s eyes met over the top of Philippe’s head. Without words, they agreed they would never explain how painful the transformations had actually been. Neither of them could forget the feeling of compression and twisting and the agonizingly familiar loss of control that was barely compensated for by the hunting prowess common to both of their forms. 

No, Philippe never needed to know that transforming back and forth between man and beast felt like both being born and giving birth every night and every day. Remembering how Philippe glowed when Navarre cupped the back of his head and drew him into an embrace as well as the way he shed any hesitancy and became more comfortable with being truly seen when she and Navarre ran their hands over every inch of him, mapping him and showing he mattered, Isabeau judged that what Philippe wanted wasn’t so much the experience of being transformed into an animal, but of being cared for like Philippe had cared for them and they had cared for one another. In their animal forms, they had been both protectors and protected, but also petted and preened as much as they desired. 

Well, they could provide that for Philippe, anyhow. She need only speak to Navarre--but in the morning, which was arriving sooner than any of them wished. 

The next night, their Philippe became their Mouse. He was told not to speak in order to force them to have to interpret his body language and discover what he wanted, to learn him as well as they had learned one another before the curse. 

Philippe’s last words before they had begun had involved both thanking the Lord and remarking worriedly that hawks ate mice. He had looked mortified after he’d realized the implications of what he’d said, but Navarre had pulled him in for a kiss, gently stroking his thumb over the shell of Philippe’s ear. 

Isabeau had leaned in and whispered in his other ear. “Yes, hawks do eat mice. Now, shhhhhh”

That night their sleep was interrupted for more pleasurable reasons.


End file.
